House of the Day: Prospect Heights Prospect
This 1890’s Prospect Heights brownstone, owned and renovated by an architect, looks lovely. The Park Place house appears to be in perfect shape with lots o’ original details (including pier mirrors, pocket doors, stained glass, original fireplace mantles, skylights) and solid updating in the right places (i.e. the kitchen). Given that it’s only three stories,…
This 1890’s Prospect Heights brownstone, owned and renovated by an architect, looks lovely. The Park Place house appears to be in perfect shape with lots o’ original details (including pier mirrors, pocket doors, stained glass, original fireplace mantles, skylights) and solid updating in the right places (i.e. the kitchen). Given that it’s only three stories, though, we’re wondering whether $1.65 million isn’t pushing it a little on price. Then again, the house in the area that we’re currently in love with is priced similarly on a per floor basis, so maybe that’s just the going rate for the good stuff in Prospect Heights.
327 Park Place [Aguayo & Huebener] GMAP P*Shark
I went to this open house too, and though I don’t usually comment on these blogs (who has the time? what kind of idiot draws serious conclusions from a few photos??), I finally feel I should weigh in.
The house was lovely, and the block had a really friendly feel.
I’m into kitchens, so I spent some time there. YES, it was butcher block — and from what I know, the best you can buy — John Boos — I saw the brand on the underside (I’m picky too!)
It doesn’t look like anything you’d see at Restoration Hardware — much more original, though simple in design. It felt like a modern pantry kitchen, and totally in synch with the rest of the house. I asked the broker about the cabinets and she confirmed they’re custom.
Overall, the house had great light (another pet peeve of mine in these old Victorian houses) and a wonderful feel.
Also, no demo of the house across the street. A friend of mine on the block says Bldg Dept submissions show adding a couple of stories.
If I didn’t love my current place so much, I’d definitely be considering this one. Move-in condition counts for alot!
I don’t mind the A&H website, I just can’t stand that woman Roslyn Huebener. What a horrible creature!!
i like the a&h website. you don’t have to enter so much information. point and click. i have no time to click neighborhood, price, etc.
just my opinion of course.
thrice-disagreer,
This is obviously a difference of taste, but I don’t see how this kitchen is any more sensitive and contextual than a more imaginative and dare-I-say-the-dread-word modern one would have been. I doubt the kitchen in this house has much in common with what the house would originally have sported anyway — take the island (is it butcher block?) for instance? To my eye, it just looks like a faux-historical and slightly suburban-looking reno job–like something out of a catalog or an upscale circular–which is why Restoration Hardware came to mind.
I have no doubt it’s a quality job and would delight someone with different tastes from mine, but I remain surprised that an architect would do something so unimaginative. Picky picky, but at this price point every buyer’s going to be picky, right?
But, hey, maybe it’s just the photos. Let’s just blame it on the A&H website.
I disagree with this comment:
“but the kitchen? Yeah it’s big and bodacious with lots of goodies, but just aesthetically I would never have guessed it was done by an architect.”
Architects are capable of doing sensitive and contextual renovations…also on the painted newel post: much of these old houses have old (lead based) paint, stripping them is not always an option- ALSO…ever see what a typical strip job looks like?
I disagree with this comment:
“but the kitchen? Yeah it’s big and bodacious with lots of goodies, but just aesthetically I would never have guessed it was done by an architect.”
Architects are capable of doing sensitive and contextual renovations…also on the painted newel post: much of these old houses have old (lead based) paint, stripping them is not always an option- AND…ever see what a typical strip job looks like?
I disagree with this comment:
“but the kitchen? Yeah it’s big and bodacious with lots of goodies, but just aesthetically I would never have guessed it was done by an architect.”
Architects are capable of doing sensitive and contextual renovations…also on the painted newel post: much of these old houses have old (lead based) paint, stripping them is not always an option- ever see what a typical strip job looks like?
You want a post about A&H? OK. Why can’t they have floorplans like every other site? I hate that!
Thurstan, I agree. That is a gorgeous PH block. (When Alan Garcia was still alive his famed “Garden of Harmony” was thriving, my family rented that space for a social event. Incredible garden that was!) I sure hope a big bad developer does not come in and demolish one of those lovely porch houses to put up a new structure! That would be a sad development, indeed.